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I've been making lots of Pithiviers for the bakery I work for. Unfortunately, since most people are not familiar with them, they are not selling well, and I will probably discontinue making them. I'm willing to bet that if I take my remaining almond filling (a modified frangipane) and puff pastry, and make mini pithiviers and call them "Almond Turnovers", they would sell much better.

I'd bet you're right about that. What a shame. It ruins the decadent luxuriousness of it, doesn't it?

You know, I had decided never to marry again. But if I ever found a man who would make me a fresh, warm Pithiviers, who would then serve it to me in bed with a large pot of fresh hot black strong coffee, that would do it. I would become his slave. So to speak. But nothing else would do it. No, no almond turnovers. It would have to be a Pithiviers.

I've been making lots of Pithiviers for the bakery I work for. Unfortunately, since most people are not familiar with them, they are not selling well, and I will probably discontinue making them. I'm willing to bet that if I take my remaining almond filling (a modified frangipane) and puff pastry, and make mini pithiviers and call them "Almond Turnovers", they would sell much better.

I think maybe I've had something like this without knowing what they're called? At my local bakery we order by pointing and saying, "... and one of those..."

Chocolate Pithivier - The recipie is in one of Simon Hopkinson's books not sure which one. Still on the menu at Bibendum and if you like chocolate.......it's amazing\(But I can't eat a whole one - some chocoholics can).

We make this in the pastry program at the school where I teach; as such i have seen some very sad ones and some nicely done ones as well. One caveat, especially with the large ones -- bake a long time. Then bake some more. Undercooked puff is greasy and cardboardy. I like pistachio frangipane.

John, those are BEAUTiful! I know the answer must be "practice" but how in the world did you cut that so evenly? (Looking at all the google images, they all seem to be scored perfectly. These people are machines!)

I get around town on my Rollerblades. When invited to dinner, I put a frozen pithivier in my backpack and I'm out the door.

I love how Jacques Torres wrote his recipe. There's even a story to it! And he even gives us a mental image of him skating around town with a frozen pastry in his backpack! Too cute.

I'd bet you're right about that. What a shame. It ruins the decadent luxuriousness of it, doesn't it?

You know, I had decided never to marry again. But if I ever found a man who would make me a fresh, warm Pithiviers, who would then serve it to me in bed with a large pot of fresh hot black strong coffee, that would do it. I would become his slave. So to speak. But nothing else would do it. No, no almond turnovers. It would have to be a Pithiviers.

P.S. I like your blog, very much.

Ooooh...a redheaded slave who can cook...shame you live so far away...

John, that's too gorgeous! Did you do that scoring with a kinfe? A wheel of some sort?

Sadly, I could only ever aspire to do such fine pastry work. This particular one was prepared by my pastry chef/instructor Didier Averty. He works with amazing speed and precision. He did all of this free-hand. For years, he was the guy who did all the chocolate lettering at Dalloyau, so there you go...

As smoke pours out of my oven from the butter seepage...what do people do to control this problem?

By the way, its looking good and will be out of the oven in 20 minutes!

Rob,

here's a list of things which might help next time...but there's always a lot of butter involved with puff...

1) make sure you did the right amount of turns with the dough so that the butter is properly incorporated into the layers...too few turns and the butter layers are too thick, thus melting more and causing seepage. too many turns and the butter disappears and you don't get flaky layers.

2) start off with a pretty high heat so that you can get maximum lift (up to 425F on a home oven). you need the heat to melt and immediately turn the moisture to steam to lift and separate the layers of the puff pastry

3) make sure the puff is rested and cold before baking

4) once you get color on the outside of whatever you're baking, turn the oven down to finish the baking so that you don't have raw layers of dough which would be undesirable.

5) make sure the dough is rolled out thin enough. most people don't roll puff thin enough and they end up with too much dough and then end up with raw unbaked layers.

Here it is. This is my first one obviously, but I'm happy with it. I enjoy making puff, but could definitely benefit from watching someone else do it. I filled mine with almond cream and Armenia blueberry preserves.

I probably could have scored my decorative lines deeper, but was afraid to based on the previous warnings, however, I did leave my puff thicker than I should have, so if I had gone thinner, I might have been deep enough.

Here it is. This is my first one obviously, but I'm happy with it. I enjoy making puff, but could definitely benefit from watching someone else do it. I filled mine with almond cream and Armenia blueberry preserves.

I probably could have scored my decorative lines deeper, but was afraid to based on the previous warnings, however, I did leave my puff thicker than I should have, so if I had gone thinner, I might have been deep enough.

By answering that question I'll have to add a post to the "You know you're an eGulleter when..." topic because I haven't had any yet :/ I cut it because I wanted to get the pic up, but we have guests coming over to try it tonight - so I re-assembled the pith.

Next time you make one Rob, bake it longer. As someone said before, with puff, bake it a long time, then bake it some more. In your close-up of the cut up piece, you can see the doughy part where the layers haven't baked up all the way. Especially in the case where puff has fillings, and the fillings weigh the dough down, not baking it long enough is a common problem.